Dare You to Move
by Yxonomei
Summary: Harry may have amnesia, but he’s neither gullible nor naïve. Draco takes advantage, but he doesn’t have complete control. Welcome to their winter meta-land. (DMxHP, slash)


**Disclaimer:** The lack of monetary gain and publication for mainstream consumption indicate that I do not own the franchise that is Harry Potter and all its subsidiaries. The title of this fic was taken from a Switchfoot song of the same name.

**Warning:** Slash (men enjoying the company of other men in an intimate, often sexual, manner), Harry is somewhat (depends on how you view him) OOC due to the circumstances explicated within the story, and because I have unrepentantly bastardized Gnostic allegories and philosophical theories, Adult Language.

First Beta: Esme  
Second Beta: Sou (MurasakiKaze)

**Advice:** You may want to have a dictionary handy before you start to read this.

* * *

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: Dare You to Move :

The air slides down inside the lungs with the sweet sting of ice crystals as if to say, 'My beauty is my danger, do not forget your scarf.' Autumn has bled itself into snow drifts and sheets of ice over stone to give sacrifice to winter's bramble crown, and now the haughty, trenchant overlord wields his frost-breath and icicle wand with childish glee. The great glass panes of the castle are embroidered with traceries of silver beauty and clear daggers of elongating cold point down from the snow shrouded roofs. Sizable drifts of packed white hunch down here and there like patient beasts waiting to pounce; and who knows what strange mysteries curl in frozen gestation inside their algid wombs?

With the first susurration of white flakes spiraling in lazy loops from the leaden sky, a warning went out to the students not to run across the ancient flagstones helter-skelter as is their wont, and now, frozen-breath solitude interrupted, Draco discovers incontrovertible proof why. Skin, pale beneath the wintry-gold of summer's fading color, arms out flung, fingers curled laxly upon their respective palms, legs splayed open; glasses weeping their innards upon the icy ground, the vapor of his breath emerging as crystal puffs and a dusting of snow upon his dark hair; the Potter brat lies in an undignified sprawl upon the ground. It seems that he has forgotten Dumbledore's warning of three weeks thence and has knocked himself out on a bit of ice. Typical.

A biting disappointment coats Draco's viscera upon finding that there is no one around to pick up the brilliance of the castigations ready to fly from his tongue. The most perfect moment to take Potter down a notch or twenty and there are no witnesses! Damn the winter holiday and all the students with parents who want them back for it. His own mother believes him better off languishing from boredom within the tenable stone ribcage of Hogwarts, what with the Wizarding World still in a huff about his illustrious—infamous—father. Daddy dearest fucked up and now his son pays for it with interest.

There is a certain power accrued, however, when one stands over the vulnerable body of ones enemy, even when not responsible for the condition. Here and now there is ample time to wreak a most flagitious retribution upon Potter with none around to reprimand him or avenge the other boy—and, really, the git is more likely to employ measure-for-measure than teacherly assistance. Salutations to the Boy-Who-Lived's hubris.

Ah, yes, but what to do with the downed prey? A charm to twist Potter's visage into something that would make a hardened Auror weep like a new born babe? Of course, Draco is not dim enough to hold a doubt that the malodorous lump of incomplete humanity will, at some later date, take his own satisfaction from Draco in a manner both public and humiliating—their never ending dance of repetition.

Another option, however, is present: he can simply leave without doing aught and let nature become the engine of his revenge with her chill embrace and somnolent promise of true oblivion. Wouldn't his father be proud? Of course, Draco will not be able to take credit—or want to—for his complicity through deliberate neglect. Then why bother if there is nothing personally to be gained? Besides, in all perverted honesty, Potter is the necessary whetting stone against which Draco sharpens his tongue. With no one else does he reap such satisfaction.

Thus, the only recourse offering some measure of satisfaction with minimal consequences is to rudely rouse Potter and then gloat over the Golden Boy's incompetence. With a huff of winter-visible breath he rubs an expensively gloved hand against his numb nose and smirks with wicked intention. Gingerly he navigates the snow packed flagstones—a truly deceptive mask for the slippery danger that lurks beneath—and delivers, depending on how generous one feels towards the Slytherin at the moment, either a rough nudge or a gentle kick to Potter's side.

"Up, you clumsy prat! Or do you have some damaged wish for hypothermia?"

A grunt of pain rides out on a crystallized breath and the smaller boy instinctively curls to protect his assaulted flank. Another blow opens dazed green-green eyes, and Draco settles back on his heels, body humming with readiness for the upcoming verbal spar.

"Ow…" With a grimace Potter massages his side and then, with another low moan of pain, brings a mitten-encased hand to the back of his head.

"Trying to better understand the Icedrake by napping in the snow, Scarhead? Dedication and stupidity—you Gryffindorks never change," Draco drawls sardonically, eyebrows climbing his forehead in unabashed amusement. Oh, it is a glorious time to be alive when one is able to find the vaunted Boy-Who-Lived in such an ignoble position!

Potter blinks bemusedly up at him, eyes squinting myopically, and continues to fondle the back of his head distractedly. No heated retort passes his chapped, pale lips, and Draco is sorely aggrieved. In fact, the sprawled boy evinces no sign of having processed the Slytherin's words—he appears more preoccupied with his own state.

"Who are you?"

"Put on your glasses, idiot." Inside, Draco seethes that the little bastard has not recognized him by voice alone; Draco certainly has no trouble divining Potter's annoying bray even from the other side of the Great Hall during the most raucous meal times. How dare his rival not know his voice, his carefully tailored insults!

"Oh yes, that explains it."

Brow furrowed in deep concentration, Potter begins to desultorily search for the missing eyewear. The Slytherin finds it almost too pathetic for words how ineffectual the Gryffindor's attempt at location is.

"You are as blind as a deep cave fish; I can feel my brain slowly dying from simply watching you. They're behind you on your right."

Another few moments elapse with a silent scream in Draco's head as Potter follows his instructions with a mien of vague frustration. Once Potter successfully acquires his errant eyewear, he places the glasses upon his nose with exasperating care and makes sure the earpieces are securely in place.

"Well, it doesn't appear to have helped much," the Golden Boy comments with a wry grin as he peers through the shattered lenses, a shard of glass falling into his lap as he speaks. They both remain in their positions for several rounds of the second hand, Draco waiting for Potter to fix his glasses with a spell and Potter waiting for something else.

"I still don't recognize you," is Potter's helpful comment after a while. The remaining shards of glass in the frames add an odd distortion to the smaller boy's green eyes and Draco finds that he has never before truly made eye contact with Potter; he has always focused the center of his gaze between the other boy's eyes, as if to burrow his malice straight through to the brain. Of course, the anger and loathing permeating their previous encounters always shielded them from unadulterated attention. Now all that mantles Potter is a sense of inwardly aimed amusement.

"Have you ever bothered to learn how to fix these things yourself? Or do you need that mudblood to hold your hand all the time. Does she also have to wipe you arse?"

Without Potter's rancor to sharpen his tongue against, his insults lack their normative flair and drama. The words jam together at the back of his throat, thick and waxen, and his lips seem unable to form the carefully carved invectives his brilliant mind creates; all this because of Potter's utter lack of animosity. Perhaps it may all be excused away with the bump the Gryffindor sustained during his tumble. He must have scrambled his brains, the little that remain after being rotted away by Gryffindor altruism.

"They're pretty much smashed."

"For the love of—"

Draco whips his wand out and utters the charm to mend them with perfect enunciation. Satisfied with the flawless execution of his effort, he crosses his arms arrogantly and waits for the knowledge of just whom Potter is consorting with so easily to sink in. The dark haired boy blinks a few more times, goes cross-eyed for some unaccountable reason, and then finally looks up.

One…

Two…

"I'm still drawing a blank."

* * *

He finds the look of mingled shock and outrage playing across the stranger's countenance to be almost as intriguing as the trick the other did to his glasses just seconds ago. Now the other is no longer a smear of black broken by smears of ivory against a background of splotchy gray, brown and white. Tailored black winter cloak and green-striped-white scarf insulating a lithe body against inclement weather, of which there seems to be plenty, marmoreal skin stained pink with cold, quicksilver eyes, hair of styled white-gold floss, the stranger remains just that: unknown, other. 

"I'm guessing from your expression that I should be able to recall you."

"Are you concussed or has your mind finally lived up to its full potential, or lack thereof?"

He gives this due thought; well, as much as the headache rioting from the lump on the back of his skull and the annoying ringing in his ears allow. Oh, and he has to toss a piss something fierce.

"I don't think so, but, honestly, I can't remember. I seem to have forgotten my own name as well," he admits with a little shrug. "Of course, I wouldn't know a concussion if I had one. Do you know the symptoms?"

"Do I look like a mediwitch, Scarhead?"

His mind quickly draws etymological correlations and conflates them into a reasonable definition for mediwizard. The conclusion? The pale prince is wondering if the sitting boy believes him to be a magical medical practitioner. The sarcasm laden tone would indicate the answer to be negative, but he cannot be fully sure. After all, sarcasm seems to serve the purpose of deflection for the stranger, as far as he has observed. Why is everything the pale prince utters a verbal shield against those around him that screams, 'Do not look too closely'?

"Are you?"

"Your taste in jokes is worse than the Weasel's, and that is saying something, believe me."

An expectation rides heavily through the chilled, snowflake-peppered air that he answers with an acerbic rejoinder. However, he is intrigued to hear that he knows a talking weasel—and one that tells jokes, perhaps bad ones, at that. He must have led a fascinating life before he lost everything. Boys who can repair broken glasses with a stick—wand?—and a few hissed words and talking animals, amazing!

However, the unknown boy with the bearing of a disenchanted prince put a very pointed emphasis on weasel, almost as if it is an epithet or a slur in place of a name. Perhaps he knows someone who cannot tell good jokes, at least according to the stranger. Oh well, he can hardly be offended by an insult he can make no personal references to. He is lacking the intricate net of interpersonal relationships that would, perforce, give relevancy to any disparaging remarks.

Yet he has just garnered a piece of the other's personality to aid in building a foundation of responses. The pale prince is fond of leveling snide critiques against others, as he has been doing to the sitting boy. Defensive response, but in defense of what?

His bum is getting cold…

"I don't remember my taste in jokes either."

The pale prince glowers at him even as his quicksilver eyes move across the sitting boy's features with shrewd calculation. A dangerously intelligent mind gives agency to the blade-elegant body swathed in black. Caution—watch where you place your feet around him or you might find yourself falling through the ice of his gaze.

"You fell, hit your head…" The pale prince smirks, a stiletto behind a silk screen, and uncrosses his arms. Hands enclosed in sleek black leather hang in what must seem casual ease, and yet the other's body is a thrumming wire of anticipatory tension. "You have no recollection of your name or mine… Do you know where you are?"

He looks about, taking in the great stone structure rising up to seemingly scrape the underside of the frowning clouds overhead with dark slate roofs and the magnificent windows of multicolored glass; his eyes roam over the pristine banks of snow hunched against the walls and spreading out like the train of a wedding dress across the flagstones of the courtyard. To his left, a low fountain wall encloses a singularly lifelike marble fish poised at a jump's inception from a wave of the same marble. Frosted grasses long since dead decorate the fountain wall's base along with more piles of snow. Beautiful in an archaic, unyielding aesthetic, but that is his only thought. No familiar memories crowd his mind to proclaim who keeps the halls alive with presence and voice.

"Is this your home?" he queries with unashamed appreciation. The pale prince chokes, eyebrows winging towards his hairline, before he regains his insouciantly confident composure. "I take it I'm wrong, then. Pity, every prince should have a castle."

A wicked satisfaction cuddles about his stomach as he breaks down the pale prince's mask again. He really ought not to take such delight in it—he should be gathering up some measure of concern for his current situation—but he finds a quiet pleasure in doing so. Besides, the pale prince seems far too young to have been fully inculcated with the jaded cynicism his deliberate tones intimate. He is like a child pretending to be daddy, a truest idealization of what others might consider faults.

Seeing that the other is trapped between what appears to be the urge to laugh with incredulity and the urge to lacerate the air with demeaning words, the sitting boy offers further discoursive options:

"What's your name?"

One can almost see the phantom of some greater personality, some oft exalted heritage, pull the other boy into a posture of dignified rigidity. Shoulders thrust back, chest pushed out with intentional arrogance, chin angled upwards in a most princely manner, the other boy declares himself to be Draco Malfoy of the distinguished line of Malfoy. He rattles off several other bits of ancestry that the sitting boy dismisses as inconsequential to the quintessence of who Draco Malfoy is.

And he still needs to piss. Pretty badly, actually. And maybe get something for his head…

"And mine?"

The look of slick mischief that curls the corners of the stranger's mouth heralds the lie about to fall between them.

"Caligula Archon." (1)

"Yes… and what is my real name?" he queries with an indulgent smile.

Surprise in the face of the sitting boy's lack of gullibility moves across Draco's face like a flock of birds startled to flight by a sudden scream. The pale prince recovers with amusing alacrity and again the haughty façade of someone older and much imitated falls over his visage—portcullis closed.

"How do you know that isn't it? You don't remember it, after all, and I do," Draco demands through a veil of wicked cajoling. The sitting boy shrugs carelessly and touches the throbbing knot at the back of his head. Ow… He lowers his hands to his lap so as not to continue to exacerbate his condition. Thank goodness the ringing in his ears has already faded away. His body is decidedly against him today, though this may very well be the natural state of affairs.

"You have some conditioned dislike for me, as far as I can tell, and I doubt my best interest is in your mind right now. So, let's make a deal—that's how you work most likely. You tell me my name, and I'll let you do one thing to me that I would never allow if I still had my memory."

Suspicion slides through the pale prince's quicksilver eyes like an eel across the surface of a placid pond as the quick mind pries open the possible ciphers crawling beneath the sitting boy's blasé words. Nature and inclination stage a brief but bloody battle, and the sitting boy is the amused observer.

Of course, if this Draco character does not catch upon a decision soon, the sitting boy will abandon him in favor of someplace private to relieve his unhappy bladder. He shifts surreptitiously.

* * *

A carte blanche from Harry Fucking Potter, supposed Savior and chronic hero, to one Draco Malfoy, enemy and rival—how… intriguing. 

Now Harry Potter is the disconcertingly mirthful possessor of his own name—truthfully supplied this time—and Draco holds the equivalent of a universal key; the temptation to inspect his own cranium for injuries flashes through him with a burst of giddy effervescence. Again he finds himself placed upon the pinnacle of a mountain of opportunities, and it is all his lizard-mind can do to process a course of action.

"So where's the lavatory?" Potter asks, rising without a thought to dignity or grace. The action is a wholly awkward and stilted procedure: weight braced on his dominant hand—the right in this case—he draws his left leg up towards his body and sets his foot flat against the ground, slipping slightly upon the ice; then he uses his arm and leg to lever himself upwards enough with a small bounce to curl his other leg beneath him in order to distribute some of his weight to the ball of his right foot; thighs spread open in a most obscene manner, now his feet are parallel to each other and he can push himself up, pelvis thrust out, with the tips of his mitten covered fingers. The final maneuver is to rock his weight forward while dragging his hand across the ground for balance. And, throughout, his left hand keeps the much abused glasses in place. With a little jump, Potter is up and grinning openly, inviting the world to share in his uncomplicated enjoyment of life.

It is a bit redundant to ask what happened to the morose, brooding Gryffindor of only a few days ago. A knock on the head is better than any chemical solution, apparently.

Potter does not even express a single concern for his lack of memories. He does not even seem to realize or care that he should be concerned. Unnatural.

Of course, the scarred idiot may be lying, a possibility not to be discounted with haste and by doing so he will be furthering a plot to… What? Slip past Draco's virtually impregnable defenses and place a crude mental trap?

…But there is something intangibly attractive about the circumstance coiling about them in gossamer wisps. Devoid of acrimony, stripped of the barbed fence of indignation, Potter is supremely accessible. The relaxation easing his slim body into a lazy slump is an unconscious gesture of approachability. He is unguarded, but not tractable: a new challenge.

The appearance of the game they have been playing since first year may have changed, and so the mode of attack as well, but the End remains untransformed. This is not about revenge for his father, though, once upon a time when the wound still hemorrhaged with newness, it would have been. This is for the personal score of one-upmanship between them, Draco and memory-Harry. Victory to the most cunning strategist.

Draco tempers the wicked grin threatening to take possession of his mouth.

"Well? Urination emergency here."

Malfoys do not roll their eyes, but he is sorely tempted. Potter, as usual, displays the power of his primitively linear mind.

* * *

Harry. Harry Potter. Harry James Potter. The words slide inside his mouth with a pleasing plainness that speaks of a cozy kitchen filled with dappled afternoon sunlight and the scent of a rhubarb pie baking in wood-burning stove, black cast-iron giant bought by a grandmother still in the earliest blush of matrimony many generations back. He can almost see the phantoms of apron wearing women, hair pulled out of the way, imparting their home-style culinary secrets to wide-eyed little girls with flour smudged across their smooth foreheads: the lingering memory of a thumb sweeping aside fine wisps of hair. Yes, he can live with that name. 

Draco, redeemably spoiled youth of too many intangible expectations, guides him away from the quietly observing stone walls of the nameless castle owned by no one Harry knows yet. The cottony crunch of previously unbroken snow fills in the lacunae left between each boy's respiratory rhythm: burning inhale of algid air, crunch, cloudy exhale spinning off into nothingness, crunch. The white drifts are up to mid thigh on Harry, closer to knee level for the pale prince, and, as the first to penetrate the chill-white, Draco does most of the work, creating a path that Harry can follow. However, it seems any small amount of exertion causes a thick fog of condensation to form on the lenses of his glasses. The black smear of the other boy's clothing acts as the focus of his navigation; as long as he keeps it before him, he will not become lost amid winter's bedclothes.

If the pale prince is to be trusted, a toilet lies at the conclusion of their journey—of course it is a bit peculiar to be moving away from the only obvious sign of human habitation to find such a facility.

Harry—the name has really grown on him—gives a little mental shrug and follows complacently. He has a notion that Draco wants his reward for the name too much to cause any mischief before Harry is in the perfect condition for it. The pale prince is a consummate director, always conscious of the urbane gaze of some unknown authority, and is not wont to allow his schemes to be anything but flawless, all participants primed to play his carefully scripted parts. Only when he has the full attention of all the actors, willing and unwilling, will he throw open the curtains and let the drama burst into action.

However, if Draco thinks himself the sole director of this stage, Harry must needs disabuse him of the notion at the appropriate time. He may have amnesia, but he is neither gullible nor naïve. Memory and knowledge are not necessarily interchangeable concepts; they are neighbors sharing a backyard with children who spend time at each other's residence before returning home for the night.

He grins and stuffs his cold hands deeper into the pockets of his robe. Absently he wonders if he will be able to find thicker mittens in the near future and maybe a nice warm cloak like his companion has as well. It really is a rather nice, warm looking cloak. Cloak envy! Harry grins to himself.

Inhale. Crunch. Exhale. Crunch.

* * *

Any well known academic institution craves the attention of affluent researchers and the grant money their presence brings, Hogwarts being no exception. To accommodate these visitors of academia in such a way as to enable them to exist independently from the school and away from student interference—students being proscribed from even entertaining the notion of poking around—a small building, more of a glorified hut actually, was built in the late eighteen-hundreds—a third golden age of wizardly curiosity and magical innovation—at the very edge of the property butting up against the Forbidden Forest. After all, many fascinating plants and creatures dwell within the intimidating darkness amid ancient and gnarled trees and the prickly bracken, all of which seem to, at times, possess an alien and malicious cognizance. Every few years, a young witch or wizard hot upon some magical or zoological theory inhabits the hut; a few have gone missing as well. 

It is to this humble abode that Draco brings the memory-bereft Potter, all in all a much better setting for whatever decision he finally brings into action. Oh, this moment is so ripe with possibilities that he cannot stop the rush of hungry saliva in his mouth. Rapacity manifests itself in many guises of desire. There are the wants of cruelty, of revenge and of superiority; there is the collection of primal wants: domination, satiation and lust. Each transmutes into a drive, a thought that pushes to the forefront and refuses to move aside, and then, if one is not fettered by society's crude restraints, action. Desire is useless if one is too impotent to act. For all that Nietzsche was a muggle, Draco is a staunch disciple of his "will to power." (2)

Draco Malfoy is no Hamlet.

Sprawled upon a ratty but surprisingly comfortable sofa situated before a smoke-stained hearth—now merrily ablaze thanks to a small incendiary spell—Draco idly considers the dark-haired boy now using the indoor lavatory. The stage is set, the game board ready for the first move. He is finding this new twist in their social interactions far more fulfilling than the old verbal exchanges and the odd magical confrontation in the hallways or after curfew in a deserted and unlit classroom. He is, among many other qualities, infinitely adaptable.

With absent-minded flicks of his fingers, gloves having already been placed within an inner pocket of his cloak now hanging with his scarf from a hook by the door, Draco undoes the first few buttons of his non-school regulation robe made of wool from a pack of immortal alpacas blessed by the Lady Guadalupe and charmed against cold and chaffing. He wears nothing beneath, unlike those muggleborns and muggle-integrationists of which the Board of Governors seem to be if the school uniforms are to be used as an example. The fire bathes his body in warmth and the fine fabric brings his body temperature a few degrees above tolerable. Dare he admit that he is _relaxed_ in the near presence of Potter? Lacking a reciprocated and aggrandized rancor, he finds himself less inclined to make denigrating comments, even in his own thoughts. It's almost as if, Merlin forefend, they are interacting in a manner similar to what they might have been engaging in if Potter accepted his friendship—or at least not snubbed him so completely—all those years ago.

No longer requiring the expenditure of energy in order to keep his guard up, Draco finds that an interesting chain of musings has taken preeminence in his mental processes at the moment. Intrigued by the course his own mind has taken, he lets his thoughts flow without impediment.

Mittens and robe carelessly tossed by the lavatory door, Potter remains in his hideously ill-fitting muggle clothes: overlarge jeans barely hanging from slim hips by a battered cloth belt and burnt umber jumper with a strange bulge of sagging fabric in the front as if it was forced to contain some grossly rotund object for some period of time before it came into his possession. He is currently relieving himself in the small room guarded by a flimsy but magically soundproofed wood door. From here Draco's mind takes wing.

Is Potter the type of male who simply unzips, reaches in and pulls out, waistband of his underclothes pinching in right before the balls, squeezing them back between his slightly spread thighs? Or does he, in the privacy of a single occupant room, push trousers and all down his hips to huddle about his upper thighs—or rather ankles, taking the trouser-size into consideration—backside vulnerable to the world?

Then there's the object of crucial relevancy. Draco has heard many horror stories concerning a particularly barbaric custom practiced by some muggles: circumcision. He has seen the rather unnatural result of such a ritual upon a Hufflepuff he shagged some years before—actually, it is the only thing about the boy he does remember. Naked in a way nature never intended, the cut penis is a sad, pathetic thing, noticeably less sensitive, and not belonging to a true man. However, Potter lived a year with his parents before the accident—or tragedy depending on which side one subscribes to—brought him to the dwelling of his muggle relatives and, for his own sanity, Draco decides to believe they left well enough alone, prepuce uncut.

Now, is Potter's cock the type where the silken foreskin only partially covers the pink glans, allowing the tip to poke out coyly? Or does his leave everything to the imagination 'till he becomes aroused and then it slowly unfolds to reveal the moist head in a most singular striptease? If the latter, does he catch the sheathe of sensitive skin between the curve of thumb and forefinger, the rest of the fingers cradling the shaft gently, and ease it down in order to loose an arcing stream of warm piss into the porcelain bowl? If the former, does he simply hold onto it with the careless disregard of one utilizing a tool of momentary necessity and listen with satisfaction to the musical 'hsssssh' as it strikes the pooled water? Perhaps he's a two-hander, one to steady and one to aim.

Right arm flung across the back of the sofa, fingers drumming an absent tattoo against the worn fabric; Draco closes his eyes and slips several more onyx buttons free from their holes. A familiar heat, one abstracted from the growing warmth of the fire-warmed habitation, has kindled in his belly in response to his mental meanderings.

He pictures Potter standing before the toilet, hips hitched forward for easy access to the cock—perhaps half hard?—the bow of his back a sinuous curve curling under itself to form the blending of buttocks into upper thighs; and those toned cheeks will be taut and firm with the strain of keeping his pelvis arched forward. His thighs are parted to create a strong diagonal line from hip to ankle; oh, he must be the type of male to push his trousers down. Yes, and everything is so clearly visible: the muscles playing in a liquid choreography beneath his skin, the outturned feet stuffed in ratty trainers, the slight rock of his body as he urges his bladder to empty faster.

But it really all returns to the ass.

Draco finds an obscene delight in the word—so common, so lowborn, so much better than "arse"—as it slides through his mind and especially when if finds vocal conception. "Arse" is an insult, but "ass" is the greatest compliment. It sounds like sex. It sounds like that moment in sexual congress between penetration and orgasm, when one forgets about the other person's presence and the focus of the world narrows to pumping hips and wet friction. "Aah" is the noise that tears out of the throat of his partner as he drives in. "Ssss" is his noise, not a groan, not a moan, not a name or an endearment. It is his breathing as he thrusts ruthlessly—_in, out, in out_—unwilling to make the same embarrassing sounds as his partners. Controlled even in the most heated moments. A Malfoy.

Yes, ass.

Sometimes he lets the word rise up in his throat, lets it coat his tongue in its salty taste, and presses it through his teeth only to pull it back before it can breach his lips. He does this in class, staring at the teacher along with the other students and jotting down notes in green ink; he does this in the hallways on the way to and from classes while other students, all of whom would stop dead to hear his cultured voice curl about such a wicked thing, hurry about; he does this alone at night—when he is alone—teasing himself with hands and thoughts of partners past and future… and the word. Aah-ssss.

He does this when he's fucking someone, and all that comes out is "ssss".

Draco allows himself a further moment of indulgence, a brief moment of weakness, as he forms a picture of the Gryffindor's Golden Boy bent over, ass ripening to delicious curvature with the action—a sweet peach anyone would want to sink teeth into.

The lavatory door creaks open.

"Is there anything around here to kill a headache?" Potter asks with a pained grin as he brushes aside unevenly cut bangs, momentarily exposing the famous, hated scar.

* * *

The moment he opens the door Harry knows, despite his headache-impaired power of observation, in what form the exchange made between them will take. With heavy-lidded yet alert eyes Draco acknowledges his entrance and question with an arrogantly sedate quirk of his lips. Winter robe unbuttoned enough to reveal a triangle of pale flesh and body a loose sprawl of elegant limbs, the other is a fire-gilded portrait of sybaritic decadence. The color in his sculpted cheeks no longer indicates the cold caress of winter's wandering fingers. In this moment he is not some unknown authority's inchoate ideal; he is as close to his nature as Harry has seen so far. The pale prince is finally fully comfortable in his corporeal shell, finally unburdened and pure Self. 

"Check that small chest over there," Draco commands with a vague wave towards the cozily small alcove behind the sofa that seems to serve as a sort of bedroom. Situated between twin beds squats a nightstand of rough wood and upon it rests the indicated chest, its quality blatantly superior.

"Right."

Eyes slide over him like the near brush of a warm palm, and he enjoys the shiver that slides down his spine. Oh yes, he knows, but how long can he draw out this pulsing line of tension between them? After all, he has only skimmed the topmost strata of the puzzle that is his companion. Harry wants to know the 'who' of Draco Malfoy and not the 'what' the other seems so intent on showing off; and he finds himself in the singular position to do so without external influence. He can only assume that the animosity carried between his memory-self and the pale prince indicates some deep grievance born in a moment of childish petulance.

"Were we rivals before?" he inquires as he steps around the quaintly abused sofa and then past the large table that takes up most of the space in this hut.

"Aren't you the least upset that you have no memory, Potter?" is the silky rejoinder that glides into his ears, rubbing against his aural canal like an affectionate cat. Catching his hip upon the low corner post of one of the beds, Harry hisses out a small imprecation and quickly takes a few mincing steps to his objective.

"I suppose any normal person would be distressed, but, for some reason, I feel free, absolutely and completely. I have factual knowledge without being circumscribed by preconceived correlations." Harry pauses, admiring the inlay of lighter wood upon the chest's polished lid, and flips up the brass latch with one ragged thumbnail. "I have neither past sorrows nor joys chaining me to a present girded by yesterday. Right now there is no one I hate and no one I love."

Inside he finds several phials containing interestingly colored liquids of varying viscosities, twists of white paper with color-coded ends holding unknown substances, dried plant parts, a pestle and mortar, several rolls of bandages, scissors and a small, leather-bound book sporting quite a few dried spatters of rust-red. A little grimace pinches his lips and he carefully does not give definition to the stains. The deep, pulsing ache inside his brain worsens. Now he cannot tell if it the knot that pains him or merely the repercussions of its formation.

"We were rivals, enemies, adversaries, et cetera."

"And now?"

Carefully, Harry plucks up a paper twist with pale blue ends and considers it thoughtfully. The knowledge unrelated to memory indicates that the phials most likely contain antidotes and anti-venoms and the twists hold treatments for milder ills. Fortunately, he still knows, in theory, about magic and its existence, he just lacks the memory regarding how to tap into it. It takes more than a pretty stick and a limber wrist to be a wizard, as Draco told him on their walk here during a brief moment of information generosity.

"Don't you have some interest in your past? Who you are?"

He sets the pale blue twist down and takes up a dull orange one. Yes, something tells him this is the one he wants. Gingerly, he untwists one end and peers inside: red-brown powder, probably the finely ground rhizomes of some unknown plant. A spicy-bitter fragrance tickles his nose and he is forced to hold back surprised sneeze. Nose twitching in order to impede the inevitable outburst, he sets the packet down with great care and steps away.

It is not as large as he anticipated. More the good.

"Perhaps the magic bit. It seems fun. But, I am me right now and I'll probably be a slightly different me in a few minutes — if I find that cure… Even with memories and a past, I don't think I would be a static personality. Fluidity of self and all that."

There is a thoughtful pause as the other boy assimilates his response and formulates his own.

"Now we are in a between place, Potter. It's rather pointless—and bloody annoying—to treat you like an enemy when you have no idea what I am referring to. New game, new rules." A snort of disgust punctures the air. "Haven't you found what you're looking for yet?"

"But still playing a game," Harry murmurs as he regains possession of the twist. Does this contain sweet, blessed pain relief? "Is this the right one?"

He lifts it up to show Draco, feeling strangely like some prophetic figure holding a religious symbol over his head—Hearken unto me, my followers!—and watches as the other boy levers himself up enough to see. Quicksilver eyes slide over the contours of his face, lingering a honeyed moment upon his mouth; and then shift to take in Harry's prize. A liquid shrug moves broad shoulders and Draco slumps back down; it is like watching a length of falling silk settle.

"Quite helpful."

"Malfoys do not use powders, which are always inferior. I take potions."

Again with the 'what', with the name that so fully encapsulates Draco's 'what' that Harry finds it a bit frightening to cognate upon. It is interesting that Draco cannot seem to separate his existence from such a simple epithetical restraint—curse of memory, and not even his own memory. Though Harry cannot recall the pale prince's parents, he senses their presence moving in with attenuated arms and clawed hands to strangle the young sapling of Draco's core-self. The pale prince has been running from them for years under the appearance of filial obedience. They say, 'You are this, my son,' and he replies, 'Yes, I am this,' and then stamps down on the part of him that whimpers, 'No.' And, years and years later, the 'no' has dwindled to the barest susurration of objection; he probably cannot even hear it anymore, except in an occasional twinge of unease, but those are easily ignored.

"I suppose I'm about to become something of experiment here. If I keel over dead…"

"It'll be on my head while I dance for joy."

A light laugh bubbles up in Harry's throat and he looses it without concern for appearances. With a shake of his head, but not too much of one, he carries the twist by the open end and moves towards the kitchen alcove. Delight spreads warmly in his stomach upon finding a squat, wood burning stove of cast-iron patiently awaiting use, dry cords of wood carefully stacked beside. This little hut is definitely non-memory-Harry approved, and he hopes memory-Harry approved as well. His plain name practically calls out for cozy domesticity, food from scratch, mended socks, and physical labor. Draco seems more suited for silk sheets spread out across a continent-sized bed and ripe strawberries dipped in fresh cream; this makes his feline sprawl across the sofa all the more amusing. No one else can look so out of place and yet be so completely comfortable, Harry muses as he pulls a tin cup off the plain shelf on the wall beside the stove's chimney. A half turn of the valve has a clean gush of water pouring from the spigot attached to the wall shared with the bathroom. Harry watches it swirl down the drain of the large tin sink below before sticking the cup under.

"Here's to the next few minutes."

The sound of expensive cloth rubbing against cheap upholstery comes from the couch and Draco's darkly intense gaze settles upon him with a nearly palpable force. With a shrug of resignation and a quick, self-deprecating grin, Harry pours the powder into the cup, swirls the liquid around until it becomes a sort of uniformly unpleasant sludge, and then tips it back with a look of utter disgust.

* * *

It is common knowledge—if one pays attention in potions class—that, for mild maladies such as headaches and hangovers, the powdered substitute is less efficacious than the same curative in potion form. The extraction process and the requisite dilution in water or another solution strips it of some of its critical properties and lowers the chance of successful assimilation by the body to approximately sixty-nine percent. A correctly brewed potion, on the other hand, is a far more expedient method of distribution to the problematic areas and only possesses an eight percent chance of failure. 

Long swallow, Adam's apple bobbing along the clean line of the throat, and Potter finishes the concoction. He swallows several more times and seems to be scraping his tongue against his upper palate in a futile attempt to rid himself of the taste. With an amused growl of disgust the Gryffindor chucks the cheap cup into the sink to rattle about in discordant tones and wipes his lips with the back of his sleeved arm.

If they cannot be enemies due to Potter's incomplete identity and careless refusal to rise to the occasion, and if they cannot be friends for too much remains between them on Draco's part, then what are they? In between, he answered minutes ago, mind reveling in the game-like exchange of questions and answers, and that is true now; yet what exists between? "Acquaintances" seems far too bland a word for the resonating cord of ineluctability strung out between them.

Now that he takes a moment to think about it, eyes lazily trained upon Potter as the smaller boy rummages about the place for who knows what, they have not really had the energy to expend on being enemies. Even hating the Gryffindor for ruining his family situation has become automatic and flavorless. Potter came back to Hogwarts with hunched shoulders, as if he could make his already slight form small enough to blink out of existence, and a hunted air. His reactions were unpredictable and volatile at times. Sometimes he would retaliate with curses hissed out in a dead man's voice—the mudblood once had to restrain him from casting an actual Unforgivable at Draco—and other times all that would greet the aimed barb would be a mask, blank in its hostility, as if Potter was unable or unwilling to find a new response. Stagnation of spirit, he has overheard teachers whisper.

Now he is memory-less and _happy_. Drenched in weeping shadows from the flickering hearth-light, Potter is the epitome of carefree contentment. The Slytherin doubts he would be this blithe if in a similar situation. What happens to a body to make a loss of all identity a better alternative?

"Apple?" Potter queries as he emerges from his meandering search, dust powdering his hair to a mixed black-gray. In each hand he holds a pathetic looking apple and his countenance is all self-congratulation in the wavering light washing the windowless abode in red-orange twilight.

"That is not an apple, Potter. That is a withered piece of what once passed for an apple, but apple it no longer is."

"Well, I'm hungry enough not to be picky. You should eat something, though. You're like a stick."

"Would you care to meet the kettle, Mister Pot?"

Potter takes a bite from the fruit he has determined to be his and grins as he chews. Draco observes the play of muscles in the other's moving jaw and the way his cheeks hollow and plump with the motion of chewing. Swallow, bite, chew, repeat.

Aah-ssss.

"Come here."

With a tilt of Potter's head the glasses become an opaque shield revealing only the reflection of the cavorting flames, but Draco can feel the musing, considering gaze behind them. Then Potter shrugs, takes another bite, and saunters over with a puppyish lope. Instead of going around to the front of the sofa and sitting as any normal person might, the Gryffindor vaults over the top, one apple between his teeth like some strange sacrifice and the other clutched in the hand not assisting with the motion. It is a strangely breathless instant, a suspension of all critical intellect, when the smaller boy's legs clear the top and, for the most infinitesimal period of time, his body remains aloft solely by virtue of one straining arm and the gathered momentum. Their eyes lock in that moment, and it is as if the lenses of Potter's eyewear are nothing more than normal glass. The green-green eyes blaze with an unfathomable elation uncompromised by the memory-laden knowledge of sorrow or the joy of its aftermath—and for a moment Draco is permitted to share in it.

His lungs seize and a hot rush of sensation surges down into his loins.

The sofa creaks ominously as the Gryffindor's body crashes onto it and the whole piece of furniture rocks against the unpolished floorboards with a hollow thump. Draco bounces upon the sagging cushions, thankfully having had the foresight to move his legs off before they could be squashed by Potter. The apple falls from the smaller boy's mouth, rolls off his lap and lands on the floor with a soft noise.

"Eat," the other boy commands as he rolls onto his stomach and holds out the uneaten apple to Draco. Green-green sparkle with impish delight from behind the thick lenses like emeralds in a jeweler's display case—mysteries at price.

"I told you—"

"They're quite tart and a bit dried out, but there's a sweetness there. When was last you ate?"

The richly sarcastic retort breaks itself apart at the threshold of Draco's lips as he catches the knowledgeable grin lurking in the creases—and isn't Potter too young to have such tragic etchings?—about the other's eyes. A melting heat spreads down from Draco's belly, and he feels his eyes falling half-mast, lips arranging themselves in a smoldering leer. Who would have thought Potter—wait, no, the Potter he knows would never turn such a look upon him even during their most torrid conflicts. Is this Potter? And why does it matter if the fey creature is the enemy he knows or an empty vessel of agency?

"I'll hold this over you for the rest of your life, and you'll truly hate me when you get your memories back, Potter," he husks in dangerous tones. This will be his only warning, not that he will allow the dark-haired hero to take this proffered exemption. Every passing second sees blood ripening his desire until his cock is hard and leaking beneath his clothing. No, Potter is not leaving until blood or passion has been spilt.

"Then that will say a lot about who we both are, don't you think?" Potter responds, scooting closer, apple still held out in seeming significance of their exchange. The smaller boy is the one on his knees upon the couch, leaning forward with his free hand braced upon the lumpy cushion by Draco's hip, yet he is no supplicant wishing for favor.

"One bite."

Wordlessly, Draco obeys, though Merlin knows why: he parts his lips and teeth, lets the Gryffindor place the withered offering at the entrance of his mouth, and bites deeply into the leathery, yielding flesh. It is tart and dry, most of the juices have long since abandoned the plucked vessel, but Potter did not dissemble when he asserted that sweetness might be found therein.

And it has to be when he is chewing that Potters asks, "What do you want to do to me?"

* * *

Gestating shadows pour forth their multitude until the boys become locked within a humid world of their own. Harry's words hang like Damocles' sword over their heads, swaying under duress of their anticipatory breaths, waiting to cleave them in every nuance of the word. He watches and waits and hopes to place Draco back in his body, a body finally lacking the imprints of others, clean slate of immediacy. There will be no expectations, no somber future littered with the fetid remnants of this moment's intimacy; and Harry does not particularly care if this intimacy is the resolution of a long-endured cathexis by way of violence or passion. After all, the choice and its execution will elucidate the 'who' of Draco that Harry finds to be quite a provocative obsession. 

Harry spares a moment to seriously consider whether his willingness to allow his supposed enemy leave to do whatever he desires and his own complacency regarding the lack of memories signify some sort of mental imbalance. Perhaps he is mad… Well, mad and aroused.

Oh, yes, his prick is quite interested in the proceedings. A pulsing, dark sensuality breathes from the pale prince and wraps Harry in its moist allure. It does not matter if he has craved another with this narrowed intensity; there is only he and Draco and the silently moaning undulations of the Promise.

A pale, elegant hand snaps out to grip the wrist attached to the hand holding the apple and forces Harry to lower his hand. In threatening increments Draco squeezes until there can be no doubt of bruises forming in the perfect sanguine-purple imprints of his implacable hand. Harry allows this, and the other can do nothing without this implicit consent. Does Draco realize this?

"Will you allow me to cast the cruelest of hexes or curses upon you?" the pale boy demands, eyes smoldering ingots of silver.

"I doubt I would hate you for that. I'd probably expect it, actually."

Another hand takes hold of a hank of hair and pulls his head back. He is amused to find that, in the thrall of their tantalizing dialogue, he has leaned closer to charismatic boy.

"I could hurt you, make you bleed."

"If that's what you want. I might hate you for it regardless."

The instant Draco falls victim to the moment—finally bursts forth from the intangible restrictions fettering him to precise actions—he lunges forward, hands still holding onto their prizes. The apple flies free of Harry's surprised grasp and sails off into the shadows beyond their concern, no longer a prop of their mutual intensity. On his back, right arm and leg hanging off the edge of the sofa, glasses askew, left wrist pinioned next to his head, Harry stares up at the pale prince looming over him, body half on him, and flushes with aching heat. The hand gripping his hair relaxes and curves to cradle the back of his head, pressing against the lump, which blooms with pain at the touch—but it is sweetly visceral, life in truth.

Erratic breaths move the other boy's chest in violent heaves and a strange, almost somnolent glow bleeds the ink of his pupil into the quicksilver iris. High color brings warmth to Draco's marmoreal cheeks and spreads down the regal column of his throat, past the edges of his gaping robe. A painful swirl of need tightens Harry's balls against his trapped prick and he knows his own appearance to be just as transformed, just as wild and wanting and wanton.

"I could kiss you," Draco hisses in silken tones, bending down with the threatening intensity of some malevolent, hungry beast in the overhanging instance before the final strike, the death blow. The hand behind his head slides free, fingers tangling in Harry's hair, and then plucks off his glasses—and his world truly becomes Draco. Closer and closer the other's face descends until Harry must close his eyes against the euphoric, shuddering dizziness and the pinching pain of too-close focus. Then there is the sensation of warm breath caressing his parted lips and the presence, but not contact, of the pale prince's imperious mouth. "Would you hate me for that?"

"Maybe… a bit."

A glistening sheen of sweat covers Draco's forehead and sticks his silver-floss hair to his flushed cheeks.

"If I touched you, made you come in your trousers?"

"Probably would hate you more."

Warm lips ghost across his cheek in the most delicate and ethereal of touches, a brush of spider-silk spun into sensation. An exquisite shiver raises goose bumps and has his hips jerking upwards in a vain attempt to gain the sweet rapture of another body. It is almost all over when Draco's hot breath tickles his ear as the other boy finally—thank the higher powers!—settles atop him fully.

"If. I. Fucked. You?"

Harry's intellect deliquesces into primal impulses as lines of clinging fire blaze into his straining erection. A surge of strength empowers his passion weakened limbs and galvanizes him into action. Roughly he grabs Draco's angular face and forces it back until their eyes meet with the clash heat-lightning, burning each other deeply into memory.

"I would loathe you absolutely forever."

"Good. Virgin?"

"Probably."

With gasping, grunting urgency Draco jerks free of Harry's desperate grasp and yanks the smaller boy's jumper up and off. The belt receives the same treatment even as Harry reciprocates this crazed undressing by grasping the edges of the other boy's robe and tearing open to the musical discordance of buttons pinging off various surfaces. It comes as no great surprise that Draco does not appear to wear anything under his robe.

"Fuck!" someone gasps as their frenzied movements bring sweat-slicked skin into sizzling contact. And the sofa isn't really large enough for this, but both are athletic enough and aroused enough to compensate.

Now Harry's trousers and underclothes are tangled about his ankles as neither has the patience to work them over his trainers. Now Draco is licking philosophical improbabilities across his chest, teeth nipping in the punctuation. Now Harry is cursing Draco soundly for obsessing over one peaked nipple and neglecting the all-important prick. Now Draco is flipping Harry onto his stomach and delivering a tantalizing slap across the smaller boy's bared buttocks in chastisement.

"Will hate you so much," Harry moans in encouragement, arching back against Draco, who seems oddly content in humping against Harry's bum, hard, weeping cock grinding into his cleft, and making a feast of his nape. So much hot, wet skin sliding and slipping and sticking together—oh yes is Harry willing to hate for this!

Face pressed against the rough nap of the couch, sweat burning into his eyes, breathing a glorious agony, Harry hisses disapproval when the larger boy shifts away. Anxious and dying for stimulation, he pumps against the sofa cushion, abrading his prick to near ecstasy. If Draco won't 'do' him soon, he'll take matters into his own hands.

"Fucking stop that, you tosser."

"I will be one if you don't hurry," Harry growls.

* * *

**Scene cut for**** NC-17 content.** See Author's Page for more details.

* * *

Many minutes have tiptoed by since Draco rammed deeply inside of him and came, and now Harry is more than a bit uncomfortable, what with being crushed by a larger body and smeared with various drying bodily fluids—plus he's lying on his own semen spot. The pleasurable daze of orgasm has begun to recede and in its gasping wake it leaves Harry acutely aware of growing list of bodily complaints. Hot, exhausted breaths paint the nape of his neck and strong arms remain locked about him. Apparently Draco cuddles subconsciously for he embraced Harry the moment after his orgasm and has not seemed to realize such. 

"Could you shift a bit?" Harry asks as he squirms slightly beneath Draco. The other boy grunts softly in consternation at having his afterglow so rudely disturbed, but obliges nonetheless. The sensation of a soft prick leaving his bum is a bit painful and wholly odd as if—actually, Harry does not really want to contemplate how he feels down there to any extent. Just… ew… ow…

Unfortunately it does not seem as though the hut is currently supplied with warm water, and he has no intention of taking a cold shower in the middle of winter. No means for cleanliness, may as well get dressed.

No longer crushed into the sagging cushions, Harry levers himself up and, on shaking legs, stumbles away from the couch while pulling up his overlarge pants and under things. Muscles pull distractingly in ways he does not think he has ever experienced before. A wry smile takes his teeth-bitten lips as small twinges radiate out from where the pale prince has just vacated, and Harry knows he will be feeling the other's mark inside for some time to come.

A liquid warmth has settled below his lungs and a softer, somnolent contentment nuzzles against his thoughts like a still-nursing whelp in search of a teat. He offers the sated boy on the couch a kind smile and sets about gathering up his carelessly tossed garments and looks for his glasses, which he finds beneath his jumper. The belt seems to have evanesced completely during their frenzied coupling, and he soon gives up the search for it as a lost cause.

"What are you doing?" Draco questions with lazy forcefulness. A floundering confusion fills his unguarded quicksilver eyes as he observes Harry's unhurried motions of preparation.

"I got to see you… well, feel you really. It was nice. You let everything go and became a 'who' instead of a 'what'," Harry answers carelessly, utterly unconcerned with whether Draco understands his response or not, as he struggles into his misshapen jumper—where on Earth did he come across these clothes?

"I thought Gryffindors would be all for a little post-sex cuddle." Something bitter and supremely unhappy taints the easy atmosphere of their recent carnal endeavor. Draco pushes himself up and begins his own clothing search with a grace that seems to be the fluid motions of an unnamed dance. Harry understands the truth of the other's complaint, however: Draco is used to being the one to cut his entanglements short, not the other way around.

"Well, I would hardly know, now would I? Besides, I have the feeling that you always make a point of abandoning—"

"I don't abandon."

"—your partner before he or she sees you at your most vulnerable." The trousers threaten to fall down about his ankles if Harry does not maintain a death grip upon them. Most frustrating.

He has built up his hypothesis of Draco Malfoy and knows that the other boy is still dragging behind him all the expectations of a capricious world, but Harry has made him crack a few times already—and how his ears still burn to remember all the filthy promises Draco made concerning his bottom. Quite an odd obsession with that particular piece of anatomy the pale prince has—not that Harry minds all that much. He has his own newly born proclivity for deciphering the complexities roiling inside of the eminent Draco and all his emotional and societal dross.

"I'm not vulnerable."

"Everyone is. It's life and existence and death. Some of us simply don't waste the energy in worrying over it. Why do you have to be an impregnable fortress?"

"Potter…" A clear warning spices Draco's low words as the taller boy fumbles with robe and its lack of many important buttons. Then the tension in the air shifts and Draco looks up to meet Harry's warm regard with considering eyes.

"Why do you never address me by my name?"

"Why don't you?" Harry counters lightly as he runs fingers though his tangled hair. Is it always this unmanageable?

"I do, too. I call you 'Potter' all the time."

"But that isn't my name; that is the name of my… tribe, I suppose you could call it. Potter is not me; it is all that has bled down to give me form, but not mind or essence."

Draco frowns as he considers Harry's words and does something to fix his stylish robe. Appearing to be either greatly disturbed or simply annoyed, the pale prince gathers up someone else's dignity and slips away from the glorious self that Harry sported with moments ago. The dark-haired boy is saddened but not the least surprised—it will take more than one good romp and stilted conversation to open the pale prince up again, but Harry is more than eager and more than willing. He briefly wonders if, with memories, he would be this interested in individuals external to himself. Can anybody truly remove himself from self-interest as long as he has memory-associations that must be firmly compartmentalized in secure categories? He does not know, in any capacity, but thinks it is something to take up with the philosophers—now he just has to find them…

"That was really, really good," Harry offers in placation. A pale brow arches and the angular features of the other boy arrange themselves in a look of smug triumph. "I'll probably want to kill you when I get my memories back."

"You can try."

On impulse, and not being one to ignore such, Harry crosses the distance between them and catches Draco in a salty, wet kiss. It is a bit of a stretch, and in more places than just his legs, but he manages quite nicely; however, he steps away before the pale prince can catch him again. This is not a kiss to begin and it is not a kiss to end; it is a promise of maybe and should be with just a tease of can be.

"I thought I couldn't kiss you," Draco grouses. The pale prince looks decidedly—deliciously—put out by Harry's small flirtation and even the smallest parts pleased and amused. For all that the other boy seems to fall too easily into the patterns of others, Harry does not begrudge him his arrogance and even finds his haughty mannerisms amusing. No, he does not revile the thought of future encounters of this vein with the pale prince.

"You were only to fuck me, but that doesn't mean I can't kiss you."

"That knock on your head made you daft, Potter," Draco remarks with a tracery of asperity. Harry shrugs nonchalantly; after all, he has already considered the possibility and not found the interest to agonize over it.

"So… what is this place?" Harry queries, uninterested in bandying theories of mental aptitude with the pale prince of this enchanted kingdom.

* * *

Against all reason and recourse, more the former than the latter, Draco keeps one arm about the Golden Boy's trim waist as he leads him into Hogwarts proper. From behind thick lenses wide, green-green eyes scan the immense entryway with the utter raptness of childlike astonishment. Apparently, Potter still finds it difficult to grasp the concept that such a structure is used as school for the magically gifted and not, as he put it, "the secret lair of some sexy dark creature who preys on pretty boys and girls," before giving Draco a wicked wink. The Slytherin reassured him with due mockery that such has never and most likely will never be the case—unless the Dark Lord wins, but Draco is not so fearful of his powers as to give him the fallacious adjective of "sexy". However, back to the issue of the arm and the waist, the Slytherin does not attempt to justify his actions as a response to the small limp the Gryffindor manifests in his walk from their engagement in the hut, and he refuses to see this as some lingering aftereffect of their fevered fuck. 

He does this because it does not feel wrong, even if it does not exactly feel right, either. Besides, the difference in their statures lends itself to the position, and Potter seems disinclined to shrug him off. All in all, their current state is completely inexplicable to Draco and he finds himself—amusingly—lacking any motivation to pry out the meanings and reasons. For the first time in months, and not since he left for a restless and monotonous summer, has he found himself existing in such a state of unaffected quiet; yet it is not quite the shocked silence that bloated him after learning of his father's incarceration from the Daily Prophet. He credits this more with just having had the most disturbingly good sex in his long sexual career and not with the curiously serene Potter bearing all amicability at his side.

"Ah, Mister Malfoy, I see you've found our wayward Mister Potter," the Headmaster announces grandly as he steps into view, all white hair and ludicrously ornamented robes—honestly, embroidered eggplants with teal lions on a periwinkle background? Bright eyes accented by half-moon spectacles trace over the two boys with sparkling intensity.

Draco freezes, fingers digging into Potter in his shock, and wonders if the evidence of their recent indiscretion reflects as blatantly across their countenances as he suspects. He can only hope that the high color lingering in Potter's cheeks will be excused as a response to the cold, and that Draco's grip upon him is not readily apparent. The latter remains a failing hope as their proximity denotes a closeness not achievable otherwise.

"Good afternoon, Headmaster," he replies with due deference. "Potter had a little accident and I am bringing him in."

"Took a spill outside," Potter corroborates guilelessly, following Draco's lead. Wouldn't it be amusing to turn Dumbledore's little one-man-fan-club into his staunchest defamer? And all with only a few whispered words of warning…

When Dumbledore kindly suggests that Potter should seek out Madam Pomfrey, Draco feels a slimy, gelatinous emotion congeal in his stomach. For a moment he is without the authorship to give it language and then he knows in creeping consciousness: guilt.

This peculiarly human ability of self-reflexivity has never tainted his thoughts since his father cauterized with harsh words and his cane the part of Draco capable of feeling such. He cannot precisely say from whence this sentiment has sprung from, but he grudgingly allows that it may name as coconspirator his lack of consideration for whether or not Potter needed medical attention. Not once did it cross his mind until this moment in the presence of the vaunted Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts. All blame for any permanent harm or memory loss Potter now suffers will fall squarely upon Draco, and he can make no exculpating argument; after all, he fucked a boy with a head injury instead of seeking Madam Pomfrey right away, as all those in control of his academic future will no doubt point out if they learn of the sequence of events. Quite clearly he can hear his father's derisive voice castigating him for not covering all angles of culpability before acting.

"Potter has no memory," he blurts out to drown the vitriolic echo of his father in his confession.

"Completely blank," Potter affirms with a shrug that jostles him warmly against Draco.

The Headmaster remains unperturbed by their assertions of Potter's mental incapacity and only makes a little "humph" of inquiry that seems more a space filler than an admittance that such circumstances are beyond his expectation. He simply a_dvises_ Draco to return to the Slytherin dorms while he escorts Potter to the hospital wing, and never once does that irritating smile leave his blue eyes. The Gryffindor slips away from his side and trails after Dumbeldore with an alarming degree of trust; Draco can only assume that the other boy has once again fallen for Dumbledore's harmless-old-man routine even without the help of mudbloods and Weasels and their obvious idolatry.

"See you around!" Potter calls gaily with a little wave before he turns his back on Draco in favor of the Headmaster's guidance.

Typical Gryffindor.

* * *

"Any dizziness?" the wimpled woman—Madam Pomfrey, as she introduced herself upon his arrival—queries as she daubs a bitter smelling analgesic upon the bump on the back of Harry's head. He wrinkles his nose against the medicinal odor of the concoction and the permeating aroma of other healing agents that characterize this infirmary. If he ever decides to bottle the fragrance of medical sterility, he will begin his efforts here. 

"It went away after awhile," he replies, swinging his legs as they dangle over the foot of the hospital bed. The elderly gentleman—Dumbledore, as he told Harry after leaving the presence of Draco—sits a couple meters away and watches the whole examination with his ever-present air of amusement. Harry finds him a wholly pleasant, if somewhat odd, person and someone who should not be underestimated for his doddering affectation. The boy has seen the knowing glint in the man's pale eyes as they chatted on the way up here. Harry has no doubt that the man knows of Draco and his dalliance earlier, though he has not yet said aught.

"Headache?"

"Went away eventually."

While omission cannot be technically hanged as a lie, it still swings free on falsehood's rope. However, he does not think this stern wand-wielding healer will be too pleased to learn that the "eventually" was brought about by a self-administered cure and then succeeded a bout of possibly detrimental physical activity—of which he is still intimately reminded with every passing minute. He does not think he has ruptured something—hopefully—but he can assert that perhaps more care should have been taken. Too late now, though. Even sitting proves to be something of a matter of difficulty. Fortunately, Madam Pomfrey has not commented on his fidgeting; Harry denied any further injuries before she began to list off concussion symptoms and that remains a blatant lie, and one he has little desire to be caught at.

"Vomiting or convulsions?"

"Not that I know of. Just the amnesia and the bump."

"Ah, very good. We at least know where those memories are, and this will remove the swelling and pain," she replies with a glance at the silver bowl resting innocuously on a dull metal table near the partition screen. Dumbledore has already explained in brief sentences overhung with mild disappointment about that particular item. Apparently, the solution to deeply ingrained trauma is as simple as removing the memory of it and storing it elsewhere to be dealt with at a later date; the elderly gentleman does not share the sentiment that postponement of internal emotional conflict is beneficial.

"What is the last thing you remember?" Madam Pomfrey continues as she sets aside the potion-dipped piece of gauze and tweezers. Gently she taps her want against his temple and hums in satisfaction at the small beep it emits.

Harry pauses, mind running backwards through the recent sequence of events, and finally hits upon his first memory.

"Standing outside and having no clue where I was except that it was—is—cold and wintertime. Then I started exploring, hit a patch of ice and knocked myself silly for a couple of minutes."

"Good, then the mild memory charm was not disrupted," Dumbledore contributes with a thoughtful stroke of his plentiful beard. For a moment Harry is seized with the nigh irresistible urge to plait it and tie off the ends with bows, but he thinks better of it almost the moment the thought coalesces within his mind.

Maybe eggplant purple bows…

"Memory charm?"

"Well, you couldn't very well put in the memory of yourself putting your memories into the Pensieve, Mister Potter," Pomfrey chides him with motherly kindness. "You wanted to be completely free of all associations. The Headmaster thought it best"—and here she shoots a look that quite explicitly conveys the level of her disapproval at Dumbledore—"that you would come across everything with completely new eyes, though why he insisted you start your first day outside, I'll never guess."

"It's a beautiful day outside," the elderly gentleman defends with blithe nonchalance.

"A beautiful day to freeze one's ears off. Honestly, Albus, sending a purposefully amnesiac student outside during blizzard season to allow him to adjust to his environs is ludicrous. What if he got hypothermia? Or was attacked by some beast from the Forest?"

"But he didn't. Mister Malfoy found him in due time."

"Little gods, Albus! Draco Malfoy? I'm surprised you got Potter back in one piece and hex-less. Those boys are like _incendio_ and hydrogen podflowers."

"We were that bad?" Harry asks as he dives into the adults' mild confrontation. His answer is a chuckle from Dumbledore and a frown from Madam Pomfrey, and from that he infers that, indeed, they were quite bad.

"But Draco showed remarkable restraint and even aided him back into the castle."

To this Madam Pomfrey only issues a doubtful noise and embarks upon another round of chastisements against Dumbledore for his perceived recklessness. Then she turns upon Harry and opines on his choice of, in her opinion, a superfluous removal of memories for reasons other than imminent mental fracturing, all of which the elderly gentleman agrees with by sage nods. After that it is Dumbledore's turn, once again, for allowing such to happen in defiance of her practical advice. The two males endure her tirade until the wind drops from her sails and Dumbledore is able to gently placate her with assurances concerning future enterprises.

Then, with a conspiratorial wink at Harry, which hurtles him straight into a fit of embarrassed blushes, he asks if Harry might have a general pain-reliever potion to take in case the bump does not go down. With another stern frown, and a look to say that she knows Dumbledore is up to something, she acquiesces and sweeps out leaving behind the palpable presence of her displeasure and the crisp, bitter scent of dandelion tinctures.

"Sir?" Harry queries as soon as she leaves the screen-enclosed area.

"Such a tumble no doubt will inflict all manner of aches and bruises upon a body. This will make sure all other possible injuries are healed. I would recommend taking it as soon as you are able just to err on the side of caution, Harry."

* * *

That night Draco dreams for the first time in weeks and finds himself standing within the unnatural organization of an orchard in late fall. Moldering fruits—their withered skins mottled by black-gray rot and punctured by insects—litter the ground in sad monuments to fecundity. 

Potter sits on the sturdy branch of an apple tree and jeers down at Draco while swinging his jean-clad legs and tossing overripe apples at him.

"You fucked my shadow, Malfoy. Only my shadow."

* * *

----------------------------- 

Annotations:

(1) **Caligula**: Roman emperor from 12AD to 41AD, said to have gone mad, ordered mass executions, brought his horse to state banquets and had intimate relations with his three sisters, one after the other. **Archon(s)**: "In Gnostic belief they are planetary rulers and guardians of the spiritual planes… predatory beings who inhibit spiritual awakening by convincing humanity of a false reality… forces of sin and temptation" -- URL stripped, type in Archons in Google.

(2) Draco's interpretation in this text coincides most closely with Hitler's interpretation of Nietzsche's theory of "will to power", in that both came to believe it to be dominance over others and said dominance's requirement of the expansion of its influence in order to sustain itself. The "will" is an unintelligent and self-driven entity; it is the most intimate and primal essence of the universe, an instinct that governs all actions. It is primarily concerned with growth, domination, advancement and self-preservation, all in the interest of the egoist that is humanity. Pleasure and satisfaction can be found only when this instinct is not stymied. I don't think Draco's quite got that last part down, though.

Another view has it as a creative drive, "will to life", and can be most readily seen in a parent-child relationship. The progenitor strives for its own good in order to pass its gains onto the progeny so that the progeny can be become greater than the progenitor. However, I highly doubt Draco would, considering his own father, follow this hermeneutical theory as such.

Authorial Principles:_ All tense changes have been meticulously considered and evaluated for contextual relevancy, and those that remain are intended. They refer to events and actions preceding the immediacy of the story-moment. The use of the simple past tense in present tense stories possesses the equivalent value as the perfect past tense in simple past tense stories (i.e. "He saw…" "He had seen…")._


End file.
